Britain from the air: The nation's landscapes as we rarely see them

Exclusive: A new exhibition of large-scale photographs is opening in Leeds

Sultan the pit pony, Penalta colliery,Wales (webbaviation.co.uk)

Lulworth Cove, Longleat Maze, Liverpool Docks and Lechlade-on-Thames will all converge on Leeds this week. These dramatic natural and man-made landscapes form part of the Royal Geographical Society's free exhibition, "Britain from the Air". More than 100 aerial photographs will be revealed in Victoria Gardens by writer, broadcaster and geographer Nicholas Crane. They will be on display for eight weeks, before touring the country.

The large-scale photos will be arranged along a 16-metre Ordnance Survey map which allows visitors to explore the exact location of each one, part of a national initiative to reconnect people with their landscapes through self-guided walks.

In anticipation of the launch, Crane explained: "We all love views from the air and this is a way of looking at landscapes that reveal shapes that we can't see at ground level. Once you raise yourself above the landscape, patterns start emerging."

Here, we reveal an exclusive preview of some of the exhibition's photographs. Commenting on the selection, Crane remarked on the unlikely similarities between Spaghetti Junction, Longleat Maze and Southend-on-Sea's rollercoasters, all constructed for very different reasons and with very different materials, but forming similar patterns that are revealed from above. He also explained that the images will force us to think hard about what we use our landscape for.

One of the most startling discoveries for him was Suilven in Scotland: "I've been to this mountain before and it really is fantastic, even from loch-level, but when you look at it from the air it's so strange. It's like a nunatak, the word eskimos give to a gigantic rock that pokes above an ice sheet. It's quite remarkable." The other image that caught his eye was of the Second World War Maunsell Forts in the Thames Estuary, which reminded him of the Tripods from H G Wells' The War of the Worlds. "When you look at them from sea level it's difficult to get their form. They just look like oil rigs."

Britain from the Air opens on Thursday in Victoria Gardens, Leeds; until 7 May (bit.ly/Britainfromtheair). Self-guided walks: discoveringbritain.org.